berfdays and beyond.

so,
i had a nice time in connecticut,
i did.
i didn't stop moving for very long,
and i rarely sat still in one place for any substantial amount of time,
but,
if i'm gonna have a christmastime in the place i'm from?
yeah.
i'm gonna doo-doo all that i gotta do,
and i'm gonna do it to eleven,
and then come back home to the woodsly goodness,
snuggle myself in a nestled-up nook of the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress,
and have myself a merry maximum XImas.
y'feel me?
c'mon.
i hot connecticut hard, neighbors-
i jumped right in,
and started swinging at all the experiences i needed to have happen,
and all the pieces started aligning in a super-elite sequence
that added up to an overall expert experience.
i was so busy doing stuff,
i didn't even capture images of all of it.
damn.
but,
here's a highlight reel from the time i spanned:

emergency tofutti!!!!
color-coordinated holiday sprankles make it taste better,
that's real.
..,and anyway,
berfday cones are kind of a tradition for me and mine.
yeah!
and you know i hit up allllll the blops, right?
right!

woooooooooord.
lalibela ethipian is another 'nother tradition i'm decreeing as a mandatory must-do
whenever there's a spare day in the south-central scented city of new haven.
for serious,
that sh!t is THE sh!t, and zero percent sh!tty,
although the other diners left a little to be desires.
ah, that's the way the injera unfolds, i s'pose.
ha.
and cake?
we OBviously had cake:

boom!
at world famous pepe's pizzeria??
you know we rocked it,
after i terrorized an entire pizza all to myself,
which was a face-filling fat kid one-man-show,
since my pie arrived after everyone else had already shared
all of their meaty non-vegan exxxtra-italian traditional jauns.
awwwww.
i ate it in record time, anyway,
because too much is the right amount,
and i needed room on the table, if not in my bellyhole, for cake.
*
we spanned so much time, me and mine.
family togetherness,
without fighting,
IS possible....
we just proved it over eighty or so hours.
guys,
it was good.
i went shopping with my ma,
out cruising with my dad,
visited one sister, and then the other,
and i even cooked dinner on the eve and the big day,
including some tasty bits like this:

i hate slimy mushrooms, kids.
i make 'em hearty, and tight, without the sluglike rubber
of weak-sauce kitchen-b!tches.
yeah.
and brussels?

i doo-doo that freaky soy-glazed fry-up like a mutha-'ucking champion.
mmmhmmmm.
we had maple-sweetened cornbread,
and cranberry sauce.
there was butternut squash, a la fortress-
with pecans, cinnamon, dried cranberries and shallots;
we ate a big ol' batch of gravy-soaked stuffin',
with veggie crumblers and leeks and cornbread for days all up in it.
yep.
it was a feast.
my father made marinara,
because italians HAVE to beat up some macaroni on every holiday,
and i fired in all little tempeh bacon to my rigatonis.
it was all expert,
and i loved every minute, every flavor, and every person.
yikes.
i guess i caught a mild case of holiday spirit.
i doubt my heart grew any sizes,
but i'm sure it thawed out considerably,
which makes prefect sense considering how outright hot it was outside.
***********
weird weather, and close family-
overlaps of olden days, and new futures,
mixed together and colliding in hugs instead of calamity.
i guess we're all getting too old to keep the old wars alive, kids,
and thar's a definite improvement.
i mean, on the ones-
my dad ate vegan waffles.
VEGAN ones.
with gay milk in 'em and everything.
i'm not foolin', but i am very surprised.
after twenty years of not giving any F*s about my 'extremist lifestyle,
and he's dominating homemade non-box-mix jammers from my own custom recipe...
that's right.
and he had more than one, at that.
sure he put the pretend jemima brown junk on them, and added straight non-gay butter,
but still,
the base was 100% albie rock coconut oatmeal magic.
word up.
i'm just sayin',
i don't believe in christmas miracles,
but that's as close as i've ever been to one.
*
and i got crabtree a few things while i was out.
i mean,
rules is rules,
and gators and crabs are what i get for my alligator shark crab, after all:

ha.
he's spoiled,
just like everybody else i know.
i do that, because gratitude and generosity are the
two of the most important parts of showing appreciation
in any worth-a-sh!t bellowing bard's warrior poetry.
i spend my mone, i spread my wealth,
and i span my time with the ones who enrich my moments,
and ennoble my motives with reciprocity.
active participation is a perpetual motion machine.
it's all really happening,
and i am grateful for the week i've spent and earned;
never quiet, never soft.....